


The Lands We Come From | A Snape Memory

by ThePhantomTaleSpinner



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood, Death, Family, Ghosts, Letters, Mother-Son Relationship, Mourning, One Shot, Oneshot, Professor Snape - Freeform, Sad, Severus Snape - Freeform, mother - Freeform, snape - Freeform, snape childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePhantomTaleSpinner/pseuds/ThePhantomTaleSpinner
Summary: Severus Snape reflects on the passing of his mother when he was 17 years old. In a world of darkness, war, and violence, he recalls the regret he felt knowing he was not beside her when she died.
Kudos: 2





	The Lands We Come From | A Snape Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, reader. Welcome to my page. These stories are based on headcanon material that I've developed for Snape's childhood. I've always been unsatisfied with the lack of detail we received regarding Severus's family, and so I decided to fill in the gaps and more fully flesh out his motivations and reasons for growing up to be the kind of man he was. Here you will find stories of loss, trauma, regret, guilt, and hopefully, some small beauties.  
> I have characterized Eileen Snape as a pureblood witch who rejected her pureblood family's legacy, running away with her first love Tobias Snape at a young age. After the birth of Severus, she attempted to distance herself from the magical world and its harmful politics, attempting to raise her son away from the Prince's dangerous Purist philosophies. However, life does not always go as planned, and her relationship with Tobias turned sour as he succumbed to alcoholism and abusive tendencies. She hid her magic for most of Snape's childhood which eventually resulted in her death when he turned 17.  
> Eileen Snape was a kindhearted woman with black hair and soft, ebony eyes. She had a deep talent for potion brewing and herbology, and often spent her days growing what they could afford in the Snapes' small backyard.  
> Her ability to love unconditionally was both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness.

_Mother,_

_You died on July 7th, at 11:00am precisely. It was a sunny day, with a slight breeze. The roses you had planted out back were beginning to grow wild, their blooms hidden within forests of leaves. They clawed at your window for you, wrapped around the sill and brushing their tender bodies against the panes._

_Outside the world went on and on, and I remembered you had once told me to never fear death. You were well accustomed to the ends of things._

_I wish I could have seen you. I wish I had come home earlier, laid my head at your bedside and listened to your breathing. I would have taken your hands and pressed them to my face so I could remember what it was like to be a child. I would have read you Mary Oliver until you were gone._

_I would have told you of the whole world, the slow sinking of the sun a thousand times, of the majesty of thunderheads, reminded you of the sound of sparrows in the morning and all of the things you will be leaving behind._

_I loved you like you love a hometown, how you never quite leave the land you come from. How a tree must love the soil its planted in, how I know nothing else than what goodness birthed me and it follows me like a ghost._

_I loved you like I could never love anyone, and when I came in that day and found your body, I died too._

_And now, the house is filled with all the ghosts of you. I find your apparition in the steam from the kettle. I smell you walk past in the hallway. Sometimes I hear your laughter out in the garden, or the beams creak with your footsteps. I did not grow up to be a person who deserved you, and I am sorry. I have left your sketchbooks on the vanity in your room. I have kept your bed made every morning. I brew your favorite tea, sweep the counters, left your mug on the windowsill unwashed._

_I think the ghosts are here because of me, and how I've kept everything you've left behind._

_I want to close my eyes and surround myself in the air your last breath became._

_I don't want to know what your absence feels like._

_I remember every detail of you right up to the end, the obsidian glint of your eyes, your palms on my cheeks, the stone marble of your skin when you had departed your body. I remember. I remember it all._

  
  



End file.
